DEAR AMY: When my fiance and I got engaged, we were excited to plan our wedding. However, the planning process has become unbearable because of my family.

Things have been bad from the beginning. My fiance and I have been saving for this day and offered to pay for the wedding, but my family was offended. Now they’ve used their status as wedding financiers to control the event.

We have tried to compromise on what we want, but that does not seem to work. For example, it was important to my family to have a Catholic service, but because my fiance and his family are not Catholic, we chose an abbreviated service as a compromise. However, my family still insisted on the full mass.

I’ve been overruled on every detail, including my dress, songs and which friends I’m permitted in my bridal party.

At this point, nothing about the wedding reflects us as a couple. We are so unhappy with how it has been going that we have decided we’d rather elope. Are we being unreasonable?

Wannabe Runaway Bride

DEAR WANNABE: The hazard of letting someone else pay for your party is what you’re facing now: Your family members, as hosts, are heads of “the party planning committee” and are calling the shots.

If you are brave enough to leap into your future by getting married and forming a new family, then you and your fiance should be brave enough to assert yourselves now.

You two should meet with your parents and say, as a couple, “This is not what we want, so we’re going to thank you, repay the deposits you’ve put down and have the wedding we want to have.”

Make sure to thank them for their generosity. And then do what you want to do.

DEAR AMY: I’m in my 30s, and my boyfriend is 54. He tries to control who I talk to, text, have lunch with and am friends with.

He has added anyone I’ve spent a lot of time with (friends and ex-boyfriends) to the “no contact” list. He is limiting contact I have with a good girlfriend because he is jealous of the time I spend with her. He creeps through my phone, email and Facebook page, and insists I erase people.

I cheated on my ex-husband. My boyfriend holds my past against me. Any time I talk to anyone on the no-contact list, we get in a big fight.

Recently during a fight, he went and slept with his most recent ex, saying he felt we were “on a break.” Now he wants me to forgive him, saying I drove him to do it. I don’t know what to do.

Concerned

DEAR CONCERNED: Your relationship summary could be turned into a sign to be posted in women’s shelters everywhere. The title would be: “These are the signs you’re in an abusive relationship.”

You need to leave this relationship immediately. I hope that seeing your cautionary poster in print gives you the courage to go.